Chapter 17
I watch as half my bar fuss over the kitten secured in the playpen across the room. I couldn’t put her behind the bar, and I didn’t want her to be alone upstairs, so I set up the pen where I could see her. Now everyone is loving her, taking it in turns to pick her up for pets and playtime.
“You brought a cat to work,” Ashley laughs.
I shrug, “What else was a supposed to do?”
“Why do you even have a cat?”
“It’s a long story, but she’s mine now. Her name is Pumpkin.”
“You and Roman have a cat.” Her brows shoot up. “Damn, girl, you’re really not selling this whole it’s pretend thing.”
“Shhh!” I panic hiss, much to her amusement.
“You’ll be having babies next and still declaring it isn’t real.”
I stare at her blankly. “Stop it.”
But she just shrugs, “I’m not wrong.”
“You are so wrong,” I huff and turn away, hiding the way heat has settled in my cheeks.
“You like him,” She gasps.
“Ashley,” I groan. “I do not like my husband.”
She chuckles, “Liar, but that’s okay. When you’re ready to fall head over heels in love with Roman Knight, I’ll be here, cheering from the sidelines.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I laugh but quickly school my features as Officer Wright comes through the door, dressed in the Sunstone Ridge deputy uniform, his hat low to shadow his eyes.
“Niamh,” He greets me with a smile, glancing around the bar.
“Deputy,” I frown, “Is everything okay?”
“I was just passing by,” He assures me, “Wanted to check in after the other day with your truck. Heard it was just a couple of kids.”
I nod and pick up a towel to dry my hands, “I’m fine, but yeah, that’s what they said. I’ve got the truck back now, so I just need to figure out what to do with it.”
“We added more patrols.” His eyes roll down me. “If something like that happens again, we’ll catch them.”
“Okay,” I try to give him a smile, but it comes out strained, a little tight.
“I, uh,” He rubs the back of his neck, “I wanted to actually ask if you wanted to grab a drink sometime.”
“Oh,” I cringe, “I’m sorry, I’m married.”
“As friends,” He rushes out, “Just to catch up or something.”
I open my mouth to decline, but I’m cut off when the bar door is slammed open and, for the second time today, Silas storms in.
He finds me immediately and eats up the space between us with big strides, ignoring everyone around him.
I glance behind him, expecting to see Roman too, but the door swings closed.
“I tried to call you,” Silas snaps out, making my head jerk back in response.
“Excuse me?”
“I called.” There’s a harsh bite to his tone that has me pulling out my cell only to see several missed calls from an unsaved number, but the cell is in silent mode like it is every day.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I frown. “Is everything okay?”
“No, we need to go.”
“Is there a problem here?” Oscar asks, his demeanor changing from casual to on duty.
Silas curls his lip toward him. “Who the fuck are you?”
They stare at each other for a long, tense moment, Silas glowering, a storm cloud over his head, while Oscar debates on what to do next.
“He’s my brother-in-law,” I rush out before someone does something reckless and focus back on Silas.
Ashley touches my hand. “What happened?”
“Roman’s in the hospital. We need to go.”
My heart drops into my stomach, and a chill rushes through me. I stare at Silas, willing those words to change, that maybe I just didn’t hear him right. Worry and anxiety churn into a nauseating mess in my stomach, and I press a hand to it, trying to ease myself though it doesn’t work.
“What?” My voice comes out weak, barely above a whisper.
“Go,” Ashley rushes out, her deep brown eyes wide as she urges me to leave.
But I’m frozen, panicked. “I can’t — I can’t just —”
“I’ve got it, and I’ll look after Pumpkin. Go.”
I nod, but I’m still not moving, my eyes on Silas, but it’s like I don’t really see him.
“Miss Calloway?” The voice crackles over the phone.
“That’s me,” I tuck the phone between my ear and shoulder as I continue to unload the delivery and stack it on the shelves.
“My name is Doctor Hall. I’m afraid we need you to come to the hospital.”
The glass bottle I’m holding slips out of my fingers, smashing onto the floor as the liquid inside soaks the bottoms of my jeans. I know. I already know.
My name is called once, twice, the sound crackling against my ear, but I can’t move. Can’t speak. Can’t breathe.
No, not yet.
Not yet.
“Dad?” My voice is but a breath, a squeak that rattles out of me.
“Yes.” It’s the only confirmation I need. My phone drops to the floor, and my throat closes up around a sob.
“Niamh?” Ashley grasps my arms, shaking me a little. I didn’t even hear her come out of the back room, but here she is, dark eyes wide as she tries to bring me out of the shock.
“He’s dead.” They didn’t need to say the words for me to know it to be true.
Ashley gasps but catches me as my knees go weak, stopping me from landing in the glass.
“We need to go,” She says as softly as she can. “Okay?”
I think I nod or maybe I do nothing at all.
I hate hospitals. Watching my dad grow weaker and weaker has left me with nightmares.
He’s withered away in that room with the too bright lights and the scratchy sheets, but they said he had at least another month.
They lied. They lied, and now I’ve missed my chance to say goodbye to him.
I knew I shouldn’t have left this morning, but I’d got the call about the delivery while in the room with my dad, and he’d insisted that I sort it.
That life doesn’t just stop, and obligations must be met.
I’d left with the promise of seeing him later. Now there is no later.
My legs are numb as Ashley guides me to the door and into her car, each move a disconnect that feels as if I am watching and not doing.
The drive to the hospital goes by in a blur; it feels as if it’s been seconds and hours at the same time.
My eyes burn, but no tears fall. Somehow, Ashley gets me inside, a guiding hand while the world continues to move around us as mine falls apart.
My dad’s usual nurse spots us as we step off the elevator, and pity flashes across her face. “I’m so sorry.”
“Niamh?” Ashley shakes me, just like she did when I got that phone call. I haven’t stepped foot in a hospital since that day, and I had hoped I never would have to again.
Silas is staring with a concerned frown, waiting for me to do something while Deputy Wright continues to watch from the side, all but forgotten now.
Shaking my head to clear it, I grab my purse and hurry around the bar, following Silas out the door and to his waiting truck, the engine still idling like he abandoned it to come in here.
I get in, and he’s moving the moment the doors are closed, speeding through the town and onto the highway that’ll take us to the hospital.
We have an urgent care here, but nothing that can deal with big traumas, and that just makes everything worse.
“What happened?” I find my voice, though it’s rough and croaky.
“He came off his horse,” Silas weaves through traffic, ignoring the cars that blare their horns at us, and we somehow make the forty-minute drive in twenty-five.
The truck is barely in park before he’s shoving the door open and waiting for me.
I have to practically run to keep up with his long strides and we go into the hospital through the ER entrance.
The sterile smell inside burns my nose, and the memories of seeing my father, lifeless and cold in the hospital bed, try to claw me down.
Somehow, I keep one leg moving in front of the other, each step a weight that’s dragged behind me.
The fluorescent lights have the headache from this morning returning, a knock at my temples.
Silas is speaking with the nurse behind the desk while I try not to crash out in the middle of the ER. I follow after him when he’s shown through a set of doors; the corridor seeming to never end, just door after closed door.
We are eventually shown to a private room and told to wait. My heart does a painful thud when the door closes behind the nurse, the four walls pressing in.
“You don’t like hospitals,” Silas states, watching me as I attempt to sit and calm down in one of the hard, blue chairs pressed against the wall.
There’s a cheery-looking photo across from me, a splash of vibrant color that seems out of place to the tornado of emotion wreaking havoc on my nervous system.
“Bad memories.” I suck in a large breath, filling my lungs before I blow it out slowly, staring at that kaleidoscope of color. My molars grind together, my jaw aching with it, and my nails bite into the palms of my hands.
“I have to ask you a question, and I need the truth.” He’s no nonsense, a little cold if I’m honest, which is a complete contrast to how he was back in that dining room so many nights ago now.
I’ve seen him a few times since I moved onto the ranch, but I guess I paid little attention to how he was when I’ve been so focused on not falling for his brother.
“O-okay,” I stutter.
“Did anything unusual happen today?” He fixes me to the spot with his stare, the color of his eyes a match to Roman’s. “Anyone suspicious come into the bar?”
I wet my lips and shake my head. “No. Nothing.”
“No one loitering outside, no cars?”
I try to think of everything that had happened today, but there’s a misfire in my mind.
After I left the ranch, I went to the pet store.
The couple of girls working in there had fussed over Pumpkin, and after I had left, the only thing that I suppose could be odd was the silver truck blocking in my car.
They left quickly though when they saw me walking toward my car. After that, I headed to the bar.
I shake my head again. “Nothing happened. Why?”
“Nothing that happened today was an accident.”
“You said he fell off his horse!” I jump up from the chair.
“He did. After someone drove at him. Pippin spooked and threw him off.”
“Oh God,” I run a hand down my face. “Someone deliberately tried to hurt him.”
“We believe so,” Silas confirms.
“Is he going to be okay?” I swallow thickly, pleading with Silas to tell me the truth.
“You care about him.” He cocks his head, his analytical stare pulling me apart, like I’m a problem he’s trying to solve.
“What!?” I defend, shifting uncomfortably. “Of course I care if he gets hurt. This may be fake, but that doesn’t mean I want him to get hurt.”
His eyes narrow at me. “The nurse didn’t have an update. They were working on him is all she could tell me.”
I bite the inside of my lip as I nod, pacing back and forth in the small box room. The air is stifling in here, almost stale, but there are no windows to crack.
Who could want to hurt Roman? It makes no sense; his entire family is loved in this town. People want to be around them.
On the other side of the room, Silas’s cell phone rings and he steps out to take the call, leaving me to my spiral.
I just need to know he’s okay.
It feels as if Silas is gone for hours when he finally opens the door again, but it isn’t to come inside.
“We can go see him.” He tells me. I’m quick on his heels, following him a few doors down.
He doesn’t pause or knock when he gets to the room, just lets himself inside, but I’m much slower to enter.
Through the open door, I can see Roman lying in the hospital bed, a heart monitor beeping steadily on the side and an IV hooked up on the other.
Molten gold-colored eyes meet mine, somewhat drowsy, and it looks like he relaxes, his lips parting on a breath.
“Careful, sweetheart,” He rasps. “Keep looking at me like that and I might let you kiss me again.”